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THE STAINED GLASS WINDOWS IN THE HALL OF MIRRORS


     The hall got its name from the two triple Venetian mirrors situated at the two ends of the hall. But the twelve stained glass windows made it really famous. Thoroczkai-Wigand Ede and Nagy Sándor painted these windows and they were made in Róth Miksa's workshop in Budapest (1913).
     The peripheral windows of the hall were made after Thoroczkai-Wigand Ede's paintings. Their themes are taken from Szekler folk legends, and they illustrate the Szekler's material-social and spiritual ethnography, architectural styles, housing, family life, important works.

     In the first group from left, we can see three pictures: Once upon a time, The Gate of the Great Lord (on the last picture on the left, bottom), Tent Palace (near, on the right). The windows on the right side are more connected with the Hungarian legend circle: Réka's tent-garden (fragment of this can be seen in the last picture, on the left, top), Csaba's Cradle (near, on the right). There are also two small window paintings; one of them is Réka's plank window. The Szekler ballad scenes, made after Nagy Sándor, the painter's plans are placed in the middle of the outer wall, between the columns in the nook.

Budai Ilona (The Cruel Mother)
Salamon Sára

     Of the four ballads on the left the first is the ballad of Budai Ilona (The Cruel Mother). The main character is the mother, who treats her children cruelly. The relatives of this ballad can be found in the European folklore. The first window picture presents Budai Ilona with her "precious little box of jewels", her "little maiden daughter" and on her right her "little running son". The second window picture presents the scene when she gets frightened hearing the horses galloping and "puts down her little maiden daughter" to have her treasure safer. The little girl doesn't want to believe her mother's cruel decision and asks for mercy. The third window picture presents the mother, who, regretting deeply her cruel deed, has returned from her journey.
     The second ballad is Salamon Sára. On the left window the girl dressed in the richly decorated "muszuj" from Kalotaszeg rides impatiently to Italy to her lover. On the central window picture we can see the seduced girl in the arms of the devil. On the right picture the dead girl is lying on the ground, only her faithful horse is guarding her sympathetically.

Kádár Kata (The Two Zion Flower)
Beautiful Julia (The Girl Taken to Heaven)

     The third stained glass painting is the ballad of Kádár Kata (The Two Zion Flower). This ballad is the tragedy of the forbidden marriage by the feudal-social differences. The lovers find each other in death. This story can be found in both European folklore and poetry: In the first window picture we can see Gyulainé, who proudly turns away from her son's will to take Kádár Kata (the daughter of their serf) to wife. The second picture illustrates the girl thrown into the bottomless lake. The third picture illustrates the eternity of love symbolized by two blossoms as they are bound together.      Nagy Sándor's fourth window picture illustrates our probably oldest ballad from the XIth century: entitled Beautiful Julia (The Girl Taken to Heaven). The theme is religious in which pagan and Christian elements are mixed together. The first window picture shows the beautiful Julia on knees, picking cornflowers.
     In the second picture she observes the heavenly envoy, the white lamb that trends towards her. Between his horns, the lamb brings the Sun and the Moon and he has on his two sides two, lit candles. The artist haloes the lamb, to relieve the heavenly glory, which follows God's envoy. The third picture illustrates the bevy of virgins that is taken into heaven. Beautiful Julia says goodbye to her mother to be taken with the saint virgins.
The four ballads use the folklore's treasure, and the Hungarian folk secessionist Nagy Sándor paints the themes of these folk ballads in a modern way. With dynamism he emphasizes their inner consistency and the tragic relieving the important ballad elements. Consistency and the tragic are the main features of the Hungarian folk ballads.
     Above the triple windows of the ballads we can see the same symmetrically settled flower pattern with flowery dome, which emphasize the folk secessionist style. Nagy Sándor's painted cartoons were painted on glass plates and put in lead frames in Róth Miksa's worldwide famous workshop in Budapest. The color shades and the painting style were attained in the highest artistic level, using the light effects from outside emphasizing the main characters and the message. Below the pictures the quotations were painted on white glass with letters of the secessionist style.
Bernády György, the mayor (1902-1913; 1926-1929) had invited the most prestigious artists of the art settlement in Gödöllő (Gödöllői Művésztelep) to decorate this secessionist architectural jewel-box, the Palace of Culture, in which, no doubt, this hall is the most beautiful gem.